For King and Country
by Wolfsaint
Summary: When an escaped criminal drops into the history class of mutant college students Karlie and Katy and a secret government agency shows up to take them all in, their lives take a turn for the marvelous as they battle interuniversal masters of death and find love in the most hopeless of places. Cap/OC Loki/OC. Rated for safety. Enjoy!
1. Wherein There are Heroes and Villains

_**Howdy! Wolfsaint here! So this is my first Avengers fic and it's kind of a collaboration with my good friend that goes to school with me. Her character is Katy, and mine is Karlie, two mutant girls attending a small university in south Louisiana that gets attacked by a most beloved escaped convict who happens to be on the run from…well, if I told you that I'd have to kill you. Besides, you'll find out soon enough if you keep reading. :) Along the way, the girls will discover friendship, love, purpose and power they never knew they had. And who knows? They might even save the day once or twice while they're at it. Don't worry, it's not nearly as touchy feely as all that. Their story is full of pain, anguish, passion, silliness, excitement and yes, there will be drunk science. **_

_**I hope you guys have as much fun reading this as I am writing it! Please don't forget to leave feedback. I THRIVE on feedback. :) And now, without further ado, I present for your entertainment: **_

_**For King and Country.**_

_**XoXoX**_

**Karlie**

"Kat, pass me the calculator, would ya?" I said, breaking the almost oppressive silence in the room.

"Sure, Fee," was the reply from the other of the two beds in our tiny dorm. I could see her out of the corner of my eye. Though she didn't move a muscle, the graphing calculator on her bedside table landed in my outstretched hand a moment later.

"Thanks," I muttered back to her, already punching numbers. "And don't call me Fee."

"Then don't call me Kat," she shot back coolly. "You're the zoo animal in this duo, not me."

"Cats don't live in the zoo," I mumbled, glancing up at her long enough to see her smirk at my lame retort. She won. As usual. Katy always wins these little arguments. She lets her head rule her actions, while my heart often gets the better of me. For what must be the bazillionth time in my twenty one years I had to take a moment to marvel at how two polar opposite souls could have ended up closer than sisters.

Katy is small, reaching only about five feet and a couple of inches. She's twig thin even though she eats like she'll never see food again, and her hair is waist length, pin straight and so blonde it's almost white. Her pale skin makes the vivid blue of her eyes stand out in her delicate face. She is unassuming and subtle, and anyone seeing her for the first time would automatically assume that she wasn't a threat, wasn't dangerous. They would be wrong.

And then there's me. I stand at about five eleven and 'twig thin' are the last two words any sane person would use to describe my physique. My skin is a deep olive and though my hair too is waist length, it's a dark auburn brown that I've been told catches fire in the sunlight. My features are sharper, sturdier on my heart shaped face with its strong jaw, high cheekbones and full lips. My eyes are dark green and often too expressive while Katy's are like ice, still and cold. I am danger of a different sort. My very presence is imposing and most people instinctively stay clear of me the way they might be wary of a tiger on a leash, just waiting for that flimsy thread to break and release the beast.

And it isn't just our appearances that set us apart. I often wonder if it was our mutations that defined who we are or perhaps the other way around.

"What are you staring at?" Katy's smooth, even voice jolted me out of my musings. She fixed me with those icy spheres and arched one nearly invisible brow high in both a question and a statement. And the statement was, 'I still think you're nuts'.

I shook my head a bit to bring it back to the present. "You, you frosty siren," I purred, batting my eyelashes at her. She shook her head at me and chuckled, sticking her nose back in her book. That girl could read if the world was on fire.

I glanced over at the clock. 9:30. Time to go.

"Come on, girl," I said, stuffing my things in my book bag and slinging it over my shoulder. "School time."

"Again?" she moaned, looking up at me with pleading eyes. "But we just went to school yesterday." She stuck her bottom lip out and pouted.

"Yes, Ms Genius. Again. I realize that this isn't the most challenging of intellectual environments for you, but it is necessary to go to class in order for us to maintain appearances." None of this was anything she didn't already know. In fact, Katy was the one who had insisted that the two of us enroll at this small university in the first place. She knew it was necessary and even though she was mostly joking, there was a part of her that resented being stuck here with imbeciles in a place that wasn't really any better than a high school. "I wish we could go somewhere big and smart and exciting for you, Katy," I told her, putting my hand on her shoulder. She peered up at me with a small smile on her face.

"I know why we can't, Karlie. You don't have to apologize for it every ten seconds. Besides," she said softly, shutting her book and standing as tall as she could manage with her diminutive stature. "I was totally kidding anyway. Let's go kick some ass."

"Well, you can kick some. I'll read all about it and cheer you on from the sidelines." She grinned at me, I grinned at her and took off down the hallway.

We trekked across the quiet little campus in a companionable silence until we reached the fountain in the quad. Trees lined the walkways that were littered with fallen pine needles. They dappled the golden sunlight, and it flashed in our eyes at odd intervals. The fountain stood tall and straight in the center of the open space that was the quad, the Eternal Flame flickering strongly at its peak.

"How many today?" I asked quietly. I could smell a few of them, but I needed her to confirm my numbers.

She glanced around covertly with all the sly cunning of a fox who knows it's being watched. A slender hand came up as if to tuck a stray hair away and brushed her temple. "Four."

"Hm," I frowned, impressed. "I only had three."

"One's got some sort of cloaking device. The signal from it is the only way I found him," she whispered. "And of course all the cameras are trained on us."

"Of course." They were always trained on us. It had become a sort of game we played in the morning. I called it 'spot the spy'. Every day the number varied by one or two, and I would scent them out and then get Katy to tell me if I was right or wrong. I was usually right. This cloaking device must be a new development and it made me nervous. If I couldn't scent them, they could ambush me. The fact that they hadn't in the ten years they'd been tailing us didn't make me feel any better.

We didn't know who they were, but we did know why they were watching us. We were dangerous. Well, ok, _I _was dangerous. Katy was dangerous by association.

I kept waiting for them to make a move, but they never did. They just watched and waited. Waited for me to blow up again. But that couldn't be it because I'd had multiple incidents in the time they'd been there and still they didn't come after us. The uncertainty of it all was what made me the most apprehensive and I was constantly on edge. And that is never a good place for me to be.

Today, as usual, they did nothing and we continued on our way to class, unbothered. Katy and I have all of the same classes together thanks to her truly phenomenal ability to hack things which really made life for me a bit easier. I was always calmer with Katy around. And boy did I need her to keep me calm in our first class.

It was taught by a man named Paul Leslie who never ceased to piss me off about something. He was a staunch liberal and while he was on the far left end of the spectrum, I was as far to the right as they came. This wouldn't have bothered me were it not for the fact that he continually put down and degraded everyone who didn't believe the same things he did, particularly conservatives like me. My palms were laced with small scars from hours of digging my claws into them in an effort to keep them from Leslie's face.

We sat in the back; I propped my feet up on the desk and Katy set up her laptop, always careful to do it the normal way. It annoyed her to no end that we had to keep who we were a secret. She would have loved to wow the class with her ability to flick the device on without even looking at it.

Leslie walked in and immediately began droning on and on about the Civil War in Louisiana and blah, blah, blah and something about some dude and more blah, blah, blah. I realize that as a history major I should probably have listened better, but when it came to Leslie I just couldn't bring myself to tune in and be subjected to the insults both implied and obvious. Besides, Katy took good enough notes for both of us.

Time passed incredibly slowly during this first class, but I had a vague sense that we were somewhere near the middle when I heard it.

Well, maybe _heard _isn't the right word. It was so far away that it was more like I _felt _the resonance of it deep in my inner ear and my bones. Instantly I had my feet on the floor and my back was rigid with alertness. My ears strained to pick up another of the sounds, because there's never just one bomb. The sound I'd caught was blast-an explosion somewhere deep in the building and it chilled me to the bone. Who would bomb such a tiny, insignificant school?! But the bigger question was, how were we going to get all these people to safety?

Katy noticed my sudden change in posture and saw the spark in my eyes. "What is it?" she whispered so low that only I could hear it.

"Don't know yet, shhh."

That was when another explosion rocked the building, and this time I wasn't the only one who heard it. Everyone in the room froze for about three and half seconds before all hell broke loose. People leapt to their feet and screamed in terror, knocking over desks and shoving one another away in their panicked haste to flee. Though it wasn't a good idea to have them all freaking out at once, there wasn't really any other option but to get them away from the blasts as soon as possible.

"Take the stairs!" I shouted, though in the din I wasn't sure anyone could hear me. My sensitive animal ears rang with the sudden assaulting chaos. "Get away from the building!" This time I added a grizzly bear's deep roar to my words and several people glanced my way in shock before scrambling over each other and out the door. Leslie was the last to leave, ambling after the students and yelling hoarse things that made no sense at all.

And then Katy and I were alone, the room silent save the cries of chaos throughout the building that were steadily growing fainter as the people evacuated. Katy's white laptop had disappeared, and she had a gun in her hands that hadn't been there a few moments ago. Electric blue circuits laced its surface, pulsing with a dangerous beauty that mimicked the fire in her eyes.

"Where's it coming from?" she asked coolly.

I stilled, cocking my head and waiting for the next blast. A few moments later it came, shaking the floor beneath our feet. And I had a lock on it. "Directly below us. Two stories. Go." Katy and I both raced for the door. When I crossed the threshold I leapt into the air, arms out, and felt my muscles ripple and a coat of glossy black fur slide over me as I made the instantaneous shift from human to panther.

My heart pounded with adrenaline and excitement and the beast raged inside, overjoyed to be let out of her cage. We tore down the hallway at top speed and I had to wait at the stairwell doors for Katy to come and open them. I bounded down the stairs in no time at all and had to wait at the door again for Katy to catch up. She held the door for me and I cautiously padded out into the hall, casting out with my nose and my ears for any sign of the culprit. My mouth hung open as I tasted the air, scanning the familiar scents of education for anomalies. I let out a hiss of surprise at what I found.

The scent was cold, painfully so and so full of anger that tasted of cinnamon that it seemed that was the essence of it. It had to be some type of being, but the scent was unlike anything I'd ever come across before. An alien perhaps, or some freak experiment gone wrong? Those seemed to be the only two options for superhuman beings these days.

I crept forward on silent paws, praying that whatever was in here wouldn't decide to let off another blast while we were on the floor before we could figure out what it was. The scent became almost unbearable as I approached the next door and I glanced back at Katy who nodded, gun held at the ready. With her support, I rounded the corner.

In the room stood a man, or what looked like a man. The beast was growing nervous at the foreign nature of this creature. She didn't know how to handle it or how powerful it was and that made her jumpy. I kept my head low and bared my fangs in a snarl, my tail twitching in agitation. He stood with his back to us, all the desks in the room flung helter-skelter against the walls. He held in his hand a long golden staff with a glowing green…thing on the end that made the hair on the back of my neck prickle. I sensed and smelled power coming from whatever that green thing was and I didn't like it one bit.

Then he turned to face us and Katy went rigid beside me. The motion was slow, controlled and graceful like a serpent coiled and ready to strike. Its beauty didn't lessen the danger I could see in the planes of his body. He had 'predator' written all over him. The beast purred. This was something she could deal with.

He was dressed strangely in a sort of black leather suit with gold and green metal accents in a strange, otherworldly design. His hair was long and black and flipped out at the ends. Green eyes stood out on a pale, fine featured face that was beautiful if a bit haggard. Though I didn't think I'd ever seen him before in my life, I had the strangest feeling that he was familiar somehow. I looked to Katy to see if maybe she recognized him, but she had gone rigid, the strangest, most indecipherable look twisting her features. I flicked her once with my tail, transmitting through the contact, _Katy, snap out of it. We need to find out what he wants._

She shook herself and lifted the gun, aiming it at his chest. "Who are you?" she demanded of him.

His posture tightened and the corners of his mouth dipped in a slight frown. "You do not know?" he asked in a velvet voice, genuinely puzzled as if the whole world should have known who he was.

"Nope. Sorry," Katy quipped, not sounding sorry at all.

The man (or whatever) frowned for real this time and said, "I am Loki, of Asgard," as if this was common knowledge. Katy cocked an eyebrow and regarded him warily.

"And what does, Loki of Asgard want?" Katy asked, sounding detached which was a far cry from what her scent was telling me. For some reason, her adrenaline had spiked as soon as he turned, and was that…arousal?

"Oh, I'm just having a bit of fun," he purred with a naughty smirk. "Didn't you hear about Manhattan? I had loads of fun there."

And that's when it hit me. Loki. Manhattan. The Avengers. The alien army that had tried to take over the planet. This was the idiot the government was still cleaning up after five months later.

Katy realized it about the same time I did. "So you're the douchebag who wrecked my vacation plans," she observed mildly. "And I'd just saved up enough for my own pair of Louboutins."

His brow furrowed in confusion for only a moment before he raised his staff, pointing the glowing end at Katy's chest.

OxOxO

**Katy**

Karlie surged forward, going for his throat at the same time that I let loose with the IED. Blue blasts of pure energy exploded from the end of it and all made direct hits…on a magical green force field that materialized around him. Karlie either didn't see or couldn't slow down in time, and she hit the force field at full strength. Her body smacked into it with a hideous crunchy sizzling sound and was thrown toward the window as if by a giant Major League pitcher. The glass shattered around her and she disappeared. Well there went my backup.

I turned a deadly glare on the man who called himself Loki. "Magic, huh?" I sneered. "Cool shit. Wanna see my trick?"

I reached out with that unnameable part of me that is the seat of my power and used it to grab onto the electromagnetic signals emitted by the IED and twist, causing the device to morph in my hand. In a matter of nanoseconds it had changed from a single, long barreled gun into twin spears, the ends crackling menacingly.

He studied my weapons with interest and perhaps a flicker of apprehension for a moment before his eyes met mine, his mouth open in a small oval and his brows scrunched together as he tried to puzzle me out. I fought to ignore the funny things happening in my chest when those emerald eyes connected with mine.

Instead, I used his momentary hesitation to make my move.

I lunged forward, thrusting out with my spears. The tips sparked with blue electricity when they met the green force field that protected him. Glowing matter sprayed out from the connection point and the room filled with a popping, zapping sound when the two forces collided. After a brief contest of wills the wall popped like an electrical bubble. And Loki was defenseless.

Well, ok, not really.

With his shield gone, he went on the attack, swinging the staff around in a wide arc with a speed almost too fast to follow. I had just enough time to raise my spears in an X in front of my face before the thing made contact, throwing up blue and green sparks and sending a jolt through my arms all the way down to my toes. He grinned at me through our crossed devices, low and menacing, and for a moment he bore a striking resemblance to Karlie just before she went wolf.

"My, my," he said. "What have we here? You're a special sort, aren't you?" he purred like he would like to put me under a microscope and find out just how special. Over my dead body.

"Oh, I'll show you special, sweetheart," I sneered at him, twisting with my will again. In half a moment, I had a staff of my own, white with blue circuits, and I reeled back and jabbed it at his middle. He parried, sidestepping and swung his own staff at my head.

Now, I'm not trained in any sort of combat. I'm a technopath. My power revolves around technology, science and things better suited to a desk than a war zone. Need a top secret government agency hacked? I got you. Need an engineer with the ability to manipulate technology through the signals it emits? I'm your gal. Need to beat a magical prince from a far away land into a bloody pulp? You might need to call Karlie for that one.

As it was, I was able to get a lock on the signal coming from his glowing green stick. Though the signature wasn't one I'd ever come into contact with, it was easy enough to translate and calibrate my own device to match it. In a matter of seconds, I had the IED online and active. He swung, my device swung up to block. He pulled back, the IED jabbed forward, pinpointing his weaknesses. All I had to do was hold it.

After a few back and forth blows, I managed to clip him on the side of the head and he blanched, staring at me in shock.

"You're not the only one around here who knows how to operate a stick, buddy," I snapped with a half-smile.

His shock turned to amusement. "So it seems," he sneered.

I tweaked with the IED's directive, setting it for offense, and immediately it leapt forward in my hands, battering him with a flurry of blows that he only just managed to deflect.

"Oh," he said. "That actually felt like you meant it, my dear." He smirked, a wicked gleam in his eye.

He spun away, swiping a wide circle with his staff and I was on the defensive again.

"Hm," I made a face like I was considering something. "That didn't. How strange? Am I the only one who came to play?"

He snarled then, and let loose with a furious attack so fast and strong that even the IED had difficulty keeping up. He hit my staff like a raging bull, every time sending a shockwave through my body and shaking my bones. With every contact, I cried out with the effort it took to just stay alive. He landed several blows on my arms and legs, the spots beginning to sting like the dickens immediately after. In no time at all I was panting and hurting and rapidly losing strength. I'm not a fighter. I'm just not built for this kind of thing. Where the hell was Karlie?!

I tweaked the device again, kicking up its speed even though it was already at a critical level. Loki was toying with me. If I didn't do something soon he was going to get bored and decide to end it. I was terrified, but I didn't show it. I kept my face carefully controlled in a mask of vague amusement.

"I could do this all day, ya know," I quipped; trying to sound fresh and strong, but my breathlessness gave me away.

He smirked at me. "I'm not so sure about that." And before I could even blink, he knocked me backward into the wall and pressed his glowing green staff into my neck. The IED dangled at my side, and I froze, the cold metal of his staff biting into the skin of my neck. He held the bar across my throat, pressing down on my windpipe and cutting off my air. I choked and gasped, my fingers clawing at the wall behind me, and I knew that this was only a taste of his true power. He could snap my neck with that staff, right here and now and there was not a thing I could do about it. In that moment, I was positive I was going to die.

I was panting and gasping for air, my face tightening as he regarded me once again with interest. He looked at me like a child might look at a shiny new toy, like he couldn't wait to take me out of the box and play with me.

This might sound cliché or silly or any number of things, but I swear that it happened.

He met my gaze, and the universe resonated.

An invisible fault line in my chest clicked together in an earthquake that shook my soul to core and reverberated through my psyche. My vision was overwhelmed with green and gold, and the amused façade fell. My eyes were wide as I drank him in. He was inches away, and even though he looked positively exhausted, he was possibly the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

The smirk fell off of his face and he studied me in an entirely different way. It was still interest, but a different sort of interest. It was the interest of something he didn't understand, but desperately wanted to. He looked at me like he might look at an equal for the first time since he'd turned around.

At the risk of sounding like a cheesy romantic comedy; Loki and I had a moment that I can only describe as love at first sight. Though I didn't realize that until much later. All I knew then was that something had happened, something had changed. From then on, there was never a moment when he wasn't on my mind, at least subconsciously. God, that sounds ridiculous.

He gazed at me, into me, through me with those shards of emeralds in the middle of his face, and I did the same to him. We searched each other, trying to make sense of the earth-shattering…_thing _that had just happened between us. I didn't understand it, and I could see in his face that he didn't either, all the while the Earth seemed to rumble under my feet.

The strength seemed to leak out of him and he relaxed, letting up on my throat and I could breathe again. I sucked in a huge, shaky breath (sounding like a vacuum cleaner) without moving a muscle. I don't think I could have moved even if I'd wanted to, transfixed as I was by the man who'd just tried to kill me.

The moment seemed to pass by in a millisecond and span years at the same time. We could have stayed that way for hours, I think, just staring into each other's eyes like there was no tomorrow and like he hadn't just partially demolished a university building. I probably would have too, just not moved until the end of time.

But then he got blindsided by a grizzly bear.

One second he was there, the next he was swept away by a huge brown blur that let out a mighty roar as she hit him. It rattled my eardrums, and for a moment I was too stunned to move. A second later I unfroze and turned to stare at them, my mouth still hanging open in shock. She had him pinned to the ground with those wicked long and wicked sharp daggers for claws at his throat and her teeth bared (HA!) in a truly terrifying snarl. He looked pretty much like I felt. Too utterly and truly shocked to fight back. Not to mention that his staff and helmet had bounced to opposite sides of the room.

It took me all of half a second to recover my wits and remember that this man/god/whatever was an intergalactic criminal with too much innocent blood on his hands to quantify. My twin spears reshaped themselves into four white shackles, pinning his arms and legs to the floor. He tore his gaze away from the monster that was also pinning him to the floor (with great difficulty, I might add) and looked at me again in wonder. That look made me warm all the way to the tips of my toes. How embarrassing.

That was also the moment our resident spies decided to join the party.

Karlie heard them before I did, or smelled them or whatever. Suddenly she raised her head and relaxed her mouth to gaze at the door. Her nose twitched and a moment later she was a wolf standing to my right and a little ahead of me, her body at an angle so that her shoulders and head were between me and the door. Loki was tied down pretty tight. He wouldn't be going anywhere until I wanted him to.

Karlie's hackles raised and she lowered her head, training her beast-silver eyes on the door and growling in what I like to call her 'nightmare voice'. Seriously, that thing would give Schwarzenegger bad dreams.

And then I heard them too and wished that my weapon weren't bolting the bad guy to the floor. Lots of booted feet were quickly approaching from the left. We didn't even have time to move before an army of black uniformed men in body armor with machine guns and face-concealing helmets swarmed into the room and surrounded us.

Karlie tried to watch them all at once. She can't _stand _having people behind her she doesn't know. It's part of the whole 'beast' thing. She never gives you her back unless she trusts you with her life. Now, all of a sudden she was faced with the dilemma of having too many people at her front and sides to watch her back, and her bushy silver tail lashed back and forth in anxiety.

She bumped into me in her frantic circling, and I grabbed onto the fur on her shoulders to keep her next to me. She snarled and snapped and growled at the men like the wild animal she was, and my fingers were the only things keeping her from destroying them. Through the physical contact she could communicate telepathically, and I'll not be repeating anything her animal brain was transmitting to me at that point in time. She was shaking with rage and terror, and I feared for the lives of the men in the room. They had no idea what she was capable of.

I thought they were there for Loki, the intergalactic criminal with tons and tons of innocent blood on his hands. That one. Never, in my wildest dreams could I have imagined what happened next, and that's the only reason I know that this is what actually happened.

They trained their guns on us.

Me and Karlie. The ones who had just subdued said intergalactic murderer! Nobody even looked at him!

"Freeze!" commanded the man in black directly in front of me.

"Oh, no thanks, I was actually thinking about tap dancing for you!" I snapped back before I could stop myself. All around me I heard hands tensing up around triggers. Karlie growled.

"I'd be careful about sarcasm if I were you," said a voice from the door. The voice sent chills up and down my spine, and its owner didn't help that much.

He was huge. Tall and thick, he was dressed in all black with a long leather trench coat over some serious gear. His skin was dark oiled mahogany and he had no hair except for a rather interesting beard. He strode into the room with his hands behind his back, and he looked down his nose at us like we were insects. He had an eye-patch that fit over a socket that looked like some sort of animal had gotten a hold of him, but that wasn't the intimidating thing about him. The really scary part was his remaining eye.

It was so cold, calculating and dead. Now, I've been told I have an arctic stare. I hold my emotions in and don't usually let them reach my face, so my gaze is normally quite frigid. But this guy. This guy was absolute zero. Nothing could survive his stare.

Nothing but Karlie, of course.

His gaze was so cold it burned, and I was forced to look away and focus on his shoulder. But not her. She met his glacier eyes with her own solar flares blazing with all the power of the stars. I knew that look. It was the dominance stare.

In the wild eye contact is very important, especially to wolves. Meeting the gaze of a higher ranking wolf is seen as a challenge, and the animals usually have an instinctual meter that tells them when they should look away to avoid a potentially fatal confrontation with a more powerful pack member. She's explained it to me before that humans have the same sort of meter, it's just more difficult to recognize and easier to ignore.

But I recognized it now, and there was no way in hell that any normal person could ignore the fact that this man was Alpha. Something in you screamed that a staring contest with him meant death, so you looked away. Well, normal people looked away.

Karlie locked her silver eyes on his dark ones and growled low in her throat. Moments that were really no longer than a heartbeat seemed to stretch on for hours as they duked it out in a silent, invisible battle of wills. I could almost see the tension crackling in the air between them. She grew steadily more and more rigid under my fingers until she was shaking. Whether it was because she was priming to strike or holding herself back, I couldn't decide.

And then he looked away.

I cocked an eyebrow in amazement. I don't even think he knew that he'd just conceded a dominance contest to the wolf who suddenly relaxed against me and huffed with satisfaction. Looks like he wasn't Alpha after all. This might have made me feel a bit better about our prospects were it not for the fact that humans play much more devious games than animals do. He may not be her Alpha, but he was still Alpha of a very large group of burly individuals with big guns. No way we were coming out of this on top.

"They might take you seriously," he continued smoothly as if nothing had happened with an almost amiable quality that terrified me because I knew it was a lie.

"Who are you?" I demanded, lifting my chin at him. Even though I wasn't in a position to be demanding anything.

He fixed me with that dead eye and said, "You don't need to know that just yet. What you do need to know is," He stepped forward until I could smell the leather on him, and Karlie pressed back against me so hard I nearly fell over.

"You're coming with us."


	2. Wherein There is Much Posturing

_**Hey guys. I just want to say a quick thank you to the two of you who reviewed my first chapter. Angel-unknown and Maros-song. Two is a bit discouraging, but I thank you both very much for taking time to write something. And thanks to all the unnamed favoriters and subscribers. Y'all are awesome too :). **_

_**And here comes my first and only disclaimer: Obviously I do not run Marvel or own any of these characters except for Karlie. Katy belongs to my friend who's helping me with this. You all should know that by now. **_

_**Now, without further ado, here is the second chapter!**_

OxOxO

Steve watched them from the bridge. He stood facing the wall of windows with his arms crossed over his broad chest and watched the neat rows of two men in black uniforms march steadily past. Banner was off to his left, his attention also captivated by the captives that were being escorted through the carrier. The men in black marched on, long and monotonous with their guns held at the ready, indistinguishable from one another in a continuous stream of shiny, tinted facemasks until finally, one by one, their reasons for being in south Louisiana came into view.

The first was nothing new. Loki stalked forward with his eyes trained firmly on the hallway ahead of him, an arrogant smirk on his face. He spared no attention for anyone. This time around, they were not even deemed worthy of his notice. The Asgardian's attitude didn't exactly surprise Steve, and neither did his reappearance on the Helicarrier. They'd been tracking him for weeks since he'd shown up on their radar again, though Steve was at a loss to explain why he'd returned or how he'd escaped from prison or better yet, why Thor hadn't followed quickly after him.

Steve could have chased the answers to those questions around and around in his head for hours, and probably would have if the other two hadn't appeared in the window at that moment.

The first of the young women was pale and very small, but honestly, that's all he noticed about her. His attention—and the attention of almost every other male on the bridge—was wholly and completely commanded by the truly imposing presence of the woman who came into view just behind her.

She was tall, at least half a foot taller than her companion, and she was fire where the other was ice. Her skin was golden and her hair fell in unkempt, dark auburn waves down her back that seemed to dance with tongues of flame under the harsh glow of the overhead lights. Her body was concealed under a black SHIELD issue blanket that she held closed with her hands that were cuffed in front of her rather than behind. Steve was too entranced to even be embarrassed for her in her indecent state.

But to be honest, the blanket was the last thing he noticed, captivated as he was by the aura of sheer power that she exuded. She was beautiful, certainly, but that wasn't what had everyone within sight craning their necks to follow her with their eyes as she passed.

At the first glimpse of her, Steve knew in his deepest, most ancient and primal instincts that she was only in handcuffs because she was allowing it. He felt rather than saw the power in her body and was awed at the strength in her stride. In a situation that would have humiliated almost every woman he'd ever known, she held her head high and prowled forward with all the graceful menace of a jaguar. Beautiful, but impossible to forget the fact that it could rip your face off at any given moment. Even shackled and buried beneath the black fabric she was dangerous, and she demanded respect by simply being. She wasn't even in the same room, and yet she drew his attention like a magnet. No, wait, that wasn't quite right.

She wasn't a magnet. She was the sun, and he the Earth. If he got too close he would spontaneously combust in a firestorm of her radiance, but something as old as time itself pulled at him like gravity and he was as powerless to resist as the planets were. He actually caught himself leaning forward and jerked back, glancing around to make sure no one had seen. He shouldn't have worried. They were as enthralled as he was. Particularly the men.

And then, as if she could somehow feel his eyes boring into her skin, she turned her head and her eyes met his, sending a jolt through him that made him stiffen in surprise.

They were silver lightning, unforgiving and unfathomable. He had the sensation that he could get lost in those eyes that glared back at him with barely contained rage. They burned with anger, and glittered with malice. Instinct screamed at him to look away, but he was physically incapable of doing so and met her gaze instead, something his insides told him might be hazardous to his health.

She lowered her head and stared daggers at him through her eyebrows, curling her lips back in a feral snarl that revealed wickedly pointed canines. He could almost hear the low rumble in her throat as she growled at him like the wolf that she was.

They tracked each other as she passed in front of the window, Fury with his gun held ready at her back. And then she disappeared behind the solid wall and Steve was released. He let out a breath that he didn't even know he'd been holding.

He relaxed his muscles and looked around to see if anyone else had been as affected by the past few seconds as he had (had it really only been that long?). Banner was eyeing him warily.

"Steve, you alright?" he asked softly, his brows raised in concern.

"Fine," said Steve. Though he wasn't entirely sure whether or not that was true.

XoXoX

**Karlie**

I drummed my claws on the steel table, making believe that I was soothed by the repetitive tapping sounds. Perhaps if I told myself how calming it was enough times, I would eventually be convinced. No luck so far. In fact, I think it was just pissing me off more. But I couldn't stop. The sterile gray room was too small to pace in, and I was still giving the impression that they had restrained me so I couldn't change to burn off some energy like I normally would. And it wasn't nervous energy. I wasn't afraid of these people. They were afraid of me. I could smell it rolling off of their skin in sour waves that excited the beast.

She snarled and snapped at me, her aggression stoked by that fear, that knowledge that they were weaker than she was and that they were prey. She clawed at my mind and fought me for control. It was only thanks to a lifetime of practice that I was able to hold her at bay. But only barely. My chest rumbled low and continuous in a growl that I couldn't suppress and I knew that my eyes blazed beast-silver.

Katy's icy presence at my side helped dull the inferno that raged inside, but even she couldn't quell it completely. I couldn't remember a time when I'd been this angry and still managed to maintain my humanity. I was naked and held captive for absolutely nothing after doing these morons a favor. I didn't know who they were—though I did know that they were the same group who'd been tailing us for nearly ten years now—and that made both me and the animal extremely anxious and all the more eager to get out of here as quickly as we could. If it weren't for Katy, we would have bolted a long time ago and taken a few of these soldier-spies down with us.

My predator wanted to hunt, to kill while my prey's only desire was to run as fast and as far as we could. The conflicting needs warred furiously within us, only adding to her strength and lessening my control.

The growl in my throat picked up pitch and volume, and my lip curled back.

"Karlie," Katy murmured softly next to me. If her hands hadn't been secured behind her back she would have put one on my thigh in comfort like she normally did. I longed for that cool, grounding touch, but I didn't think it would help much this time. "You need to calm down. You're starting to blur."

I looked down at my hand. She was right. The outline was less distinct. I was much too close to shifting. The beast was fighting to push her will on me and she was almost winning. I couldn't afford to go feral right now. A lot of good people could get hurt if I did. They were just following orders. Right? Just following orders. Just following orders.

I closed my eyes and breathed deeply through my nose, repeating the phrase over and over again in my mind.

I didn't have time to find out if it worked or not, because after just a few moments I heard the door open. The black man with the leather coat and eye patch was standing there, eyeing me with tight lips and a manila folder in his hand. I met his gaze steadily, the animal stirring again in agitation at his blatant challenge.

"You want to see about finding me some clothes?" I bit out before he could speak, making the request a demand with my eyes and effectively negating whatever purpose he'd entered with. I was not ok with being interrogated by the Harbinger of Death wearing nothing but a very scratchy black blanket and some handcuffs.

He sighed deeply through his nose and tilted his head back, peering down at me in exasperation. Huh, odd. Intimidation, I was used to. Fear, definitely. Not this…resignation. The man actually rolled his eyes at me! The gesture hit me like a bucket of ice water, dousing the beast so quickly and completely that all I could do was blink.

He wasn't afraid. He just seemed vaguely annoyed. He fixed me with a chastising glare like I was an errant teenager that had thrown a tantrum he'd seen a few too many times.

"Wait here," he said and disappeared again.

The door clicked shut and Katy turned her head to look at me. I was too stunned to even move, and we spent the next few minutes in a weird sort of silence that I sincerely hope never happens again.

Finally, I forced myself to break the oppressing quiet. "How are my eyes?" I asked softly, turning to look at her.

She smirked a little and assured me, "Green. He freaked you out, didn't he?" she asked with a cheeky grin and I narrowed my eyes at her. "You couldn't scare him."

"That has _never _happened to me before," I said through gritted teeth. "I even had Muscles McGee going when we passed that window on the way here. And we weren't even in the same room!" Now, that guy had been freaked. I couldn't smell him to be sure of exactly what emotions had been flitting through his mind as we'd stared each other down, but his body had told me enough. As soon as I'd looked at him, he's stiffened and his jaw had clenched as he ground his teeth together in tension. His massive arms had been crossed before then, but when our eyes met his fists had clenched, indicating defensiveness and hostility.

His eyes, however (a magnificent shade of sky-blue, not that I noticed or anything) had held more surprise and bewilderment than fear as if he were shocked by his reaction to me rather than _me._ Oh, there had been fear, yes. But he was a soldier, it was practically written in black Sharpie over every line in his too-straight, too-perfect body, and soldiers don't let a little thing like fear get in their way. He had denied his fear of me, thereby robbing it of its power.

What was wrong with these people?!

Fortunately, I didn't have long to worry about this. Eyepatch Guy chose that moment to make his reappearance, and I sat up straighter, composing my face into a serene mask. Maybe if we behaved nicely, they'd let us go. I knew that there was absolutely no possibility of that happening, but it made me feel better to hope.

In his right hand he clutched a very large man's green plaid button-up dress shirt. And that was it.

I glanced at the shirt, and back up at Eyepatch Guy. Down at the shirt, up at Eyepatch Guy. I cocked an eyebrow at him. Seriously? This was it? A whole flying aircraft carrier and _this _was all he could find?

He tossed it into my lap and blinked, his expression unchanging. "Fresh out of cashmere. Sorry," his deep voice resonated with enviable sarcasm, and he didn't sound sorry at all. Clearly that was all the explanation I was going to get.

"And how exactly do you expect me to put this on?" I asked, matching his tone.

With another nose-sigh he dug a set of keys from one of the many pockets on his trench coat and leaned across the table. I held my hands out so that he could remove my shackles and rubbed my wrists, feigning discomfort. They didn't really bother me, nor did they do anything to restrain me. I wasn't quite sure whether or not they knew that, so I didn't let on lest I need the element of surprise later.

"Two minutes," he said and disappeared once again.

"You got the cameras?" I asked Katy, already standing to shrug out of the blanket.

"They can't see you," she replied coolly, averting her eyes. God bless her. I shouldn't have even had to ask. She knew me and my modesty so well.

"Ha!" I barked, shrugging into the shirt that was beginning to strike me as eerily familiar. "Let them try to figure that one out. They have no idea what they're dealing with." I buttoned the tiny white buttons as fast as my fingers would allow, grateful for the fact that whoever owned this shirt was huge. It was just long enough to cover what needed to be covered and hung loosely from my shoulders. I put the sleeve to my nose and breathed in long and deep, drinking in the scent and running it through every analyzer I had. It smelled like its owner, leather, gunpowder and oil paints. There were other things, other elements to the scent that were less pronounced like his preference for plain laundry detergent and other agents he used to clean with. All of these combined to form a very distinct mixture as unique to each person as their finger prints. This man smelled like a soldier.

And then I knew.

This was _his _shirt. The man from the bridge. The man who'd pinned me with his crystal eyes as we passed through the hallway. Interesting. In my mind's eye I could see it on him, stretched taut over his many impressive muscles.

"They can still hear you though," Katy intoned rather matter-of-factly.

"Good," I snapped, fastening the final button and tucking the shirt under me so I could sit back down. Even though it was relatively warm from where I'd been sitting on it, the steel chair was cool and bit into the bare skin of my thighs. As an added measure of protection, I wrapped the blanket around my legs and crossed them.

A lot of people have seen me naked over the years, but only because the beast wanted them to and because nakedness was a requirement for the activities she had in mind. I think it was my complete and utter lack of control when under the thrall of her animalistic passion that contributed to my extreme aversion to others seeing me without clothing when _I _was in the driver's seat. The sooner I could find some real clothes, the less anxious I would be and the safer everyone else would be.

My two minutes ended and Eyepatch Guy promptly entered the room for the third time, and I held my hands out sweetly for him to re-cuff. The beast growled, clawing at my mind as I lowered my eyes and my head to him, trying to seem as submissive as possible. I knew it didn't really matter. I'd won the initial dominance confrontation which was all that really mattered. His instincts would remember who was boss when the time came.

I could feel him eyeing me with suspicion as he slid the cold metal back around my wrists. He didn't miss a thing, this one. He was smart. He knew better than to trust a dominant wolf that won't look you in the eye. This might be a bit more difficult than I thought.

He tucked his keys away (third breast pocket, left interior) and his folder hit the table with a light _thwap. _

"What are you?" he demanded slowly and without preface. He tossed two photographs that he'd drawn from inside the folder down in front of us, one of which was of Katy. It was a black and white picture of her in one of our earlier battles, her arms outstretched with the IED mid-change, suspended between them by nothing.

The one next to it was me, and my eyes were drawn to it, the sound of gunshots echoing sharply in my ears in contrast to the stillness of our tiny grey room. The acrid harshness of smoke wafted into my nostrils, clogging them, choking me. I could still feel the hot wind blasting through the feathers of my wings and whipping my hair across my face as my clothes and skin burned, the gun in my hands eroding my soul like a sandblaster.

In the photo, I stood on the hood of a car, its color, make and model lost to the obscurity of war and time. My t-shirt hung in tatters from my shoulders and the scorched holes in my jeans still smoldered. My face was nearly erased under the thick layer of grime and soot. My eyes blazed bright and silver, practically glowing against the gloomy backdrop of the partially demolished city. My battle-ragged wings fell nearly to the ground, dirty and torn. A dark substance I remembered as blood coated my right side in a rough splatter, and I could still feel its sticky heat branding my flesh. Suddenly I felt the incredible urge to take a long, cold shower.

This picture was much more recent. Only a year or so ago now. Had it really been that long? It couldn't have been. I had only seen him just—

I didn't realize I had grown my claws again until Katy's cold hand settled over mine, gently prying my fingers from the thick, glossy paper that now sported several ragged holes.

"I can still feel it," I whispered, my voice nearly inaudible around the lump in my throat. "His blood."

"I know," Katy replied, another cool hand stroking my cheek and forcing me to look at her. She had tears in her eyes. She missed him too.

I squeezed my eyes shut tight and tossed the picture away, memories playing in rapid succession behind my eyes and weighing on me like the ocean at the bottom of Mariana's Trench. Quickly and with all the mental strength that I possessed, I bottled them and shoved them back down into the abyss where they belonged. I hardened my mind and guarded my heart, just like I'd been doing for as long as I could remember. If they could see me, they could hurt me. And I didn't know how much more hurt this ol' soul of mine could take.

I fixed the man who was watching us from across the table with a stony look and said evenly, "We won't be answering any questions until we've learned who's asking them and why." I was pleased with how calm I sounded.

The side of his mouth quirked upward in a sardonic smile. "My name is Nick Fury, and I'm the director of the Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division, also known as SHIELD. You've never heard of us, and that's the way we like it. We're an intelligence agency that has lately become the world's leading authority on and defense against supernatural and superhuman forces. We also…" he looked up, casting about for the right word. "handle the special forces team known as the Avengers."

The Avengers. Superhuman royalty. The group all of us had secretly begun to aspire to. For mutants like Katy and I who couldn't bring ourselves to put Professor Xavier and his students at risk with our presence, the Avengers were our safe haven, our paradise. The place we could go to belong and make a difference in the world. The place we would be worth something.

I didn't allow myself the luxury of hope.

"As for why," Fury continued, picking up the scattered photographs and sliding them neatly back into the folder. When he looked back up at me his eyes blazed with obsidian fire. "You are a threat. You are dangerous and have been given free rein in this world for too long."

We'd done nothing but help the people of this country.

Well, ok, that's not entirely accurate. I'd actually done at least as much harm to the civilian population as good, but around here there weren't many others who could stand between the ordinary humans and their extraordinary threats.

I knew that Katy wasn't included in the _you _he kept using. They hadn't been watching us for ten years for her, and they hadn't interfered in our battle with Loki for her either. He'd been the main target, sure, but if he hadn't given them an excuse, they would have found one sooner or later. The fact of the matter was SHIELD wasn't here for Katy.

They were here for me.

OxOxO

**Katy**

Karlie sat back in her chair, arms crossed over her nearly-bare chest and her eyes flickered silver once. She glanced over at me and I blinked slowly, giving her the go-ahead to take the lead. I don't know why she kept asking permission. I thought it was an unspoken agreement between the two of us that she assume the Alpha position. She was better at diplomacy (of both humans and animals) than I was, and she was stronger too.

Stronger of character, that is. Girl's got nothing on me when it comes to _gifts_.

Still, she always had to make sure it was ok with me before making any decisions. I must be the best treated Beta in all of existence. Lucky me.

"Well, since you've answered my questions so graciously, I suppose I'll answer yours," Karlie said congenially. "Katy and I are human," she informed him in a voice so pleasant and open that it sounded like she was doing him a favor.

I barely managed to catch myself before I snickered. The look on Patches' face was positively priceless. I would have paid money for a picture of that annoyed scowl to look at whenever I was feeling low. It was like he was looking at his kid who'd just done something stupid for the bazillionth time. I guess working with Stark had immunized him to sarcasm and intimidation tactics.

Instead of laughing out loud like I really, really (REALLY) wanted to, I leaned forward in my seat and crooned, "Now, Patches. Why would you even have to ask what we are? Isn't it you who's been stalking us for the past ten years?" I peered out at him with eyebrows raised and lips pouted in my very best over-the-top innocent face.

Patches was not amused.

"Who tipped you off?" he demanded, through a clenched jaw.

"Oh, please, Director!" Karlie exclaimed, rolling her eyes and tossing her head back. "I'm an animal. You think I don't know when I'm being watched? Give me some credit here, dude." She sprawled back in her chair and dropped her shackled wrists onto the table, the metal clanging together loudly. "And she does have a point. Why are _you _asking _us_? You've got those pictures, and I know you've got more. You already know what we're capable of. And that whole, taking-us-in-because-we're-dangerous nonsense is a load of bull. You've had ten years' worth of evidence of how dangerous I am, and you've been in prime position to strike more times than I can count. And don't insult my intelligence by assuming I don't know that it's me you want, not Katy. Do what you want with me, but let her go. She's done nothing wrong."

As if I would go anywhere and leave my girl to fend for herself with these idiots. They'd tear her apart.

"I don't think you quite understand the severity of your situation—" Fury started, pulling a Karlie and trying to use his eyes to pin her to her chair and force her to submit to him. But no one pulls a Karlie like Karlie.

So quickly I didn't see it, she was on the edge of her seat, her fists clenched on the table and her eyes silver as she cut him off. "No, I don't think _you_ understand _your_ situation, _Director,_" she sneered the title, and he looked away from the severity of her gaze. "I could kill you and every single one of your men in their sleep, and Katy could drop this boat like a rock without so much as blinking, and you think _you're _the one holding all the cards?"

She might have went on and gotten us into a whole world of trouble, but Patches' comm chose that moment to let out a shrill, rapid beeping that I felt a moment before we all heard it. He glared the promise of retribution at Karlie before pressing his fingers to a black hands-free device in his ear.

He listened for a moment before snapping, "On my way. Send in the Captain to finish up here." With one final furious (HA) look at the ball of fun sitting next to me, he swept from the room in a flap of leather and disappeared behind a resounding click.

"What did they say?" I asked her when the room fell silent again. She took a deep breath to calm herself and then looked at me with safe, green eyes.

"They said, 'Barton and Romanoff are on line three with a report'."

"Whatever the heck that means," I mumbled. "And who's _the Captain_?" I asked, wiggling my fingers at this new title. Who did these people think they were?

The door opened yet again and a pleasant, masculine voice said, "I am." And in stepped Mr. Tall, Blonde and Perfect from the bridge. Minus one green button up shirt. So that's where Patches got it from. Well, I figured that the likelihood of Blondie getting his shirt back was somewhere in the neighborhood of slim-to-none.

Karlie stiffened beside me. I guessed she'd figured out where her attire had come from too.

"I'm wearing your shirt," she blurted. Yep. She knew.

I looked over at her like she was crazy. Which she was. Her face was lobster red, and I could practically feel the heat rolling off of it. Hm, she was usually so collected around men.

"So I see," he said curtly, glancing down at the white cotton undershirt he was left with. Karlie shrank back in her seat. I watched her out of the corner of my eye, making sure she didn't turn into a rat or something. "My name is Captain Rogers, and I'm going to be asking you girls a few questions." He didn't look at us as he spoke, but instead thumbed through the paper in the manila folder Patches had obviously handed off to him.

"Girls?" I asked, cocking an eyebrow. "How old are you, twenty seven?" He fixed me with his sky blue eyes in an amused expression that looked like he wanted to say something, but he didn't. So this was to be all business, was it? Boring.

"And what are your names?" he asked, still looking at the paper in his hands.

Karlie sighed heavily next to me and said, "I'm Karlie Breaux, and she's Katy Clements," rubbing her forehead wearily. She had resigned us to our fate, and now I had to play along and be cooperative. Bummer.

"And what, exactly is your relationship to the war criminal, Loki?"

That name sent a shock of icy lightning through my system, freezing me like the Gorgon's gaze. I had almost forgotten about the whole battle-in-the-school, crazy-weird-eye-contact-moment thing. My vision was overloaded with green and gold, and all I could see were his eyes. I wondered where he was and whether or not he was thinking about me.

"Wait a minute, wait a minute," Karlie cried, her mood shifting from resigned back to pissed in the span of a nanosecond. Her body was rigid and tense and she was on the edge of her seat again, her claws on the table. "You think we had something to do with Loki's appearance at our university?" She asked, her voice dangerously soft. And there was that name again.

"Ma'am, you need to stay calm so that we can get to the bottom of—"

She shifted from girl to snake and back again so fast I couldn't tell what kind of snake, and she fit right back into her shirt and blanket. The handcuffs fell to the floor with a loud metallic clatter, and she was on her feet, slamming her hands down on the table in a sound like a gunshot, silver eyes blazing.

All of this in the space of about one point five seconds.

"Now, you listen here, Jarhead," she snarled in her nightmare voice. "I've only ever seen that man on television. And you will not—I repeat, NOT-be telling me to calm down. I have been arrested, completely naked for absolutely no reason whatsoever after doing your job! I'm being held against my will like some sort of criminal, and no one can give me a satisfactory answer as to why! You all had better count your blessings because I AM CALM!" she shouted at him, leaning farther and farther over the table. And she was kinda right. Normally she would have ripped his throat out by now.

He looked startled for a moment, but then his eyes hardened and he slid a hand into his pocket.

"NO!" I screamed, leaping to my feet. I don't know what I thought I was going to do with my hands secured behind my back, but I was too late anyway.

I'd seen the syringe before she had. She had just enough time to shoot him the most poisonous look I'd ever seen before he jabbed the needle into her right upper arm and pushed down the plunger.

It took her all of three seconds to hit the floor.

XoXoX

_**Reviews are much appreciated! **_


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